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Comment by dirbrian

I love this talent for almost every spec. Building up chi isn't too much trouble for me but instead I tend to overfill my chi more often. I assume this his wont be needed once you've mastered managing your chi and abilities

Comment by ikenaikoto

I don't know why blizz don't mentioned the change of this in 5.1's live patch note?(I knew it has been mention in PTR's patch note but isn't live's patch note a summarizing of ALL the changes from 5.0.5 to 5.1?)

Now it's at least a competitive tatent compare to the other 2.

Comment by Azavari

Changed in patch 5.1 from its underwhelming one max chi increase to its current one chi increase, 15% energy regen, and 15% max mana increase. This makes it a pretty good choice compared to power strikes or chi brew, especially for Mistweavers struggling with mana.

Comment by HelloKitty

This is the best talent of the tier for a Brewmaster, PERIOD.

Let's do some basics. I will be using MY Brewmaster as a baseline, as his gear is 'decent' (480 ilvl, 8.23% haste).

Previously I had a bit of a misunderstanding about the applications of Power Strikes. It was my understanding that the Power Strikes buff would only be reapplied 20 seconds after the last usage of the buff, possibly due to my lack of experience with it since 5.1 hit, or just general inattentiveness.

However, Power Strikes will refresh every 20 seconds from a (seemingly random) fixed time. This means that your second Power Strikes application in an encounter will be, at most, 19.99 seconds in, and at least, 0.01 seconds in. This nets upward of an extra Chi in that first minute.

With enough Haste (something along the order of 10%) you will gain about the same amount of Chi per minute with either talent. There are what I consider to be two other factors worthy of consideration between these two talents:

Chi Storage

I'm going to assume people understand the function of storing Chi: if you are actively tanking, you probably don't want to. On the other hand, if you are experiencing any downtime, such as you are the inactive tank during a tank swap, you are in a less-damaging phase or role (eg, tanking only 1 Guardian of the Stone Guard), or a phase where you (ideally) take 0 damage (eg, Devastating Combos for Will), you are experiencing downtime.

When downtime ends, more chi = better. Think of it like this: The Chi you had or had generated during downtime is superfluous, exempting DPS concerns. All that matters is you having the maximum amount of Chi going into the 'active' phase, for reasons such as... cleaner transition with Guard already applied, earlier Shuffle application, or a quick Purifying Brew should you take an early hit before you can get Shuffle up. For this purpose, PS -can- outperform, but Ascension probably will.

Barring DPS concerns, PS is arguably better due to its 'Chi Sphere' mechanic: If you Jab at 4 Chi (Yes: Max Chi, NOT 3 Chi) you will generate a Chi Sphere (at the expense of wasting a Chi into overcapping!). That 'expense' is totally acceptable if you don't care about Chi during downtime (hence, 'barring DPS concerns', because that lost Chi is lost potential DPS... as well as, of course, lost potential for getting long-term Shuffles, but that's another matter).

For some specifics: the 'Chi Spheres' last two minutes, are only generated if used at 4/4 Chi (not 3/4), like healing spheres are only consumed if you are not at max chi, and also like healing spheres, can be consumed pointlessly if stacked (2 stacked Chi Spheres -> you run over them with 3/4 Chi -> they are both consumed but you are only given 1 Chi).

The best-case-scenario involves even distribution of chi spheres in a fight where you can afford to move enough to pick them up. Downtime must be longer than 20 seconds to store more than one Chi Sphere (ie, for multiple PS procs), and recall that for every chi sphere you place on the ground you are wasting one chi. Keep in mind, if the downtime is not longer than 20 seconds (eg, Devastating Combo on Will is not longer than 20 seconds), you will not stockpile more than 1 Chi Sphere, and, thus, Ascension can do the same thing with less heartache.

This all said, if you had 1.5 minutes of downtime it's theoretically possible to obtain 5 (90/20) Chi Spheres and cap to 4 Chi, presenting you with essentially 9 Chi upon the end of the downtime phase (vs Ascension's 5). This is highly theoretical though: it takes some skill to execute, some luck in getting decent chi sphere placement, and is contingent on extremely long downtime phases, you intentionally wasting Chi in procs (meaning you don't care about your own DPS, or have no hope of having a perma-Shuffle), etc.

Additionally, if cleaner or more successful tank swaps are your main goal, and assuming you did have periods of 90-seconds-downtime where you didn't care about DPS, I'd just opt for Chi Brew. You could have 4 Chi already, use them, and immediately consume the Brew for 4 more. That nets you 8 Chi with absolutely no annoying micromanagement of Chi Spheres or anything. In general, though, most downtimes are along the order of 20-30 seconds, and Ascension's ease-of-use makes it the far-along winner, in my opinion.

Energy's Other Purposes

While it's obvious that PS and Ascension have roughly equal Chi-per-minute generation, there is another thing to consider here. Energy gives Chi per minute, obviously, but what else will it do?

It will compensate for your sloppy play: You weren't paying attention to KS (Keg Smash)'s CD, so you just jabbed. Now you have 10 energy and KS just came off of cooldown. The longer you delay this ability, the less Chi-per-minute you are generating. Faster energy regeneration will allow you to get that KS a bit sooner.

It allows you to heal yourself, or others, faster: placing Healing Spheres on the ground beneathe your or someone else's feet can heal for substantial amounts, entirely dependent on your energy regeneration.

Perhaps a more relatable or vital point is that it can save your life: Sub-35% your Expel Harms have no CD (and out-DPS Jab by a lot!), and the only limitation to your spamming them is your energy regeneration. This is made even more effective when Guard is up, especially with Glyph of Guard's increased uptime.

It is a slight decrease in DPS. Rather than Jab giving you an additional Chi (ie, PS), you must jab an additional time to obtain that additional Chi. This is as opposed to using filler instead of jabbing (ie, Tiger Palm). Tiger Palm hits substantially harder than Jab.

Some notes regarding the other specs:

Mistweaver: It makes Mana Tea heal for more mana. In addition, stockpiling Chi is VERY useful for them for burst healing (a la Uplift). If you are struggling on Mana, or simply want to drop some spirit to take more throughput, the increased mana regeneration this gives you (45k additional mana: 3.6k extra mana per mana tea usage; 1800 MP5 if used to the CD; equivalent of roughly ~1.5k additional Spirit) can allow for reitemization or generally more throughput, far more than an extra 3 Chi per minute would!

Windwalker: They don't benefit from +10% Energy Regen from their stance (Brewmasters do), and so this +15% is not +16.5% (in the same way as it is for Brewmasters, due to the multiplicative stacking).

I'd say with pretty high certainty that this will greatly outperform for a mistweaver when it comes to general throughput as well as burst healing. I probably wouldn't take it if I were a Windwalker, opting instead for PS (faster chi in the opener, too!). As a Brewmaster, though, due to the fact that we already want Haste (and this scales like crazy) as well as other concerns, even with decent gear, I would opt for this over PS.